


Our odds...

by auchterlonie



Series: OperationCosyInspired [5]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Rescue, Root and Shaw on a mission, Shaw feeling what it was like for Root.., when plans go wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-20
Updated: 2015-06-20
Packaged: 2018-04-05 06:19:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4169190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auchterlonie/pseuds/auchterlonie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Root's plans always seem to go sideways at some point, this one is no exception. Root is grabbed and goes missing - and Shaw feels what that's like...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our odds...

"I can't see you."

" _You can see me just fine_ , " Root said through the comm as she casually rolled her head to look out the cafe window towards Shaw's sniper perch across the way.

"If you get grabbed because I can't see you, it'll be your funeral. I don't want to hear Harold blaming me."

" _Your capacity for concern is overwhelming, Sameen_."

Root stared up at her for a moment longer as if making a point, but then collected her things and moved to the empty table in the window, where Shaw had a fuller view of her. She sat down and very carefully crossed her legs in such a way that the hem of her dress slid a several inches northward, no doubt intentionally. " _Is that better, sweetie_?"

"That was weak," Shaw said shaking her head. "You know this is stupid, right?"

" _What is_?"

"The whole thing. I'm too far away and I only have one angle on you..."

" _That's all I've ever needed you to have._.."

"... If this goes even a little bit wrong, I won't be able to help you," she answered, ignoring her.

Root let out an exaggerated sigh at Shaw's apparent unwillingness to play even a little bit of the game. " _Why are you so convinced it'll go wrong,"_ she asked with a seriousness that bordered on pity.

 _"_ Root... it _always_ goes wrong."

Root shook her head at the pessimism and started to respond, but Shaw didn't want to hear it. She stood, starting to break her rifle down as she did. "I don't like it. I'm coming down..."

" _Don't you_ dare _..."_ Root answered with a taught fierceness that registered clearly through the comm, surprising Shaw and making her stop mid-motion. " _You stay right where you are."_

Shaw glared down at her. "I'm sorry... did you just give me a tactical order?"

" _Is that a problem for you?"_

Shaw hesitated just a fraction - completely unused to Root of _all_ people speaking to her like that - but the moment was short lived as Root slipped effortlessly back into her more familiar persona.

 _"Trust me, sweetie. Would I steer you wrong?"_ she asked innocently.

Shaw hesitated again, but started reassembling her rifle after a moment; she knew Root's plans usually went sideways somewhere along the way, but they tended to work out in the end, so she could watch this shit show play out, for now.

"We're going to talk about this later," she added though. It was not Root's job to shot-call on security...

" _I look forward to it_ ," Root answered coyly as she took a long, slow sip from her straw. " _I'll even let you pick the safe word."_

"Root..." Shaw warned, but even she could hear the hard edge of her voice was gone.

" _Thank you, sweetie."_

Shaw shook her head once more and dipped back to her semi-invisible perch. "So where is this target, anyway? Seems to be running late."

Root tapped her phone to check the time and then set it on the table. " _He'll be any minute now, so two things. Promise you won't be mad."_

Shaw huffed a laugh. "I never promise that with you."

" _And second, I'd like you to come get this phone. It's my favorite. It has the photos from our stake-out last week."_

"Wait, 'second'? What was the first thing...?"

Root stood and carefully brushed down her dress in just the right way to draw Shaw's eyes where Root no doubt wanted them. Then she stepped out to the sidewalk and cast a glance down the road towards a van idling near the light. She smiled when it started to move towards her and she looked back up at Shaw. " _Don't be mad."_

"Root...?!"

Shaw had just enough time to see Root smile again, before the van screeched to a halt between them. A masked man jumped out, threw a hood over Root's head, and dragged her inside with a single motion. Shaw got off a round of shots, but they pinged uselessly off the apparently armored sides of the van before it sped off.

She was off in a heartbeat.

She reached the street, jacked a car, and was after them before they'd made it two blocks up. She focused on the taillights as she weaved between cars and through intersections without the least bit of care for anyone around her... all that mattered was Root.

But this was New York.

A couple of trucks were blocking the next intersection when the lights turned and with pedestrians swarming to cross, Shaw had nowhere to go. She blared on the horn and started moving through the crowd anyway, but it was no good, so she bailed and pushed her way through, figuring she'd steal another car on the other side...

But when she got through and could look around, she realized the van was gone.

"Where is she?!" Shaw shouted at the nearest traffic cam, but when her phone - her interface with the Machine - didn't buzz in her hand, she stalked forward to the center of the traffic-heavy intersection and glared up at the camera. "I asked you a question. Where. Is. She?"

Car horns blared up around her, but Shaw stood defiant. Even when she heard the familiar 'woopwoop' of a police car's warning siren, she stayed where she was until the phone finally buzzed.

PLEASE STOP

"I'll stop when you tell me where she is."

PLEASE STOP

Another 'woopwoop,' much closer than the first, told her the cops were almost to her and she was rational enough to know she'd be no good to Root in a cell. "We're going to talk about _this_ , too," she said as she gave the camera the finger, pulled her hoodie around her head, and disappeared into the crowd.

***

It would be fourteen days before the Machine spoke to her again.

Fourteen days of Harold running numbers and hacking traffic feeds around the city.

Fourteen days of John and Fusco tracking fruitless leads.

Fourteen days of Shaw cursing the Machine's existence, threatening its _continued_ existence, and getting drunk enough to want to carry through with ending it...

Particularly after thirteen days of scrolling through the photos on Root's phone searching for the clues her cryptic riddle of a request had surely suggested... before accepting on the fourteenth day that they were _just_ photos of the two of them. And that Root had simply wanted them preserved.

After _that_ fourteenth day, when Shaw felt a little string somewhere inside her break, Shaw's phone finally buzzed in her hand.

***

It was late when Shaw reached the park, but between the path lights and the ever present glow of the city around them, it was light enough for her to see Root from almost a block away. She was alone and sitting quietly on a bench, staring off into the city as if were captivatingly beautiful.

She looked fine from a distance - so fine, in fact, Shaw was sure this had been another of her elaborate games and Shaw advanced on her determined to give her a piece of her mind for putting her through fourteen days of hell...

But Shaw slowed as she neared and realized Root's posture was... _off_ , though she couldn't yet describe exactly how. It was just a feeling or sorts - the product of having studied Root so closely for so long - that she just knew from looking at her that something was terribly wrong.

"How you doing, Root?" she asked quietly as she approached.

"Fine, Sameen. How are you?" She rolled her head drunkenly towards Shaw and the moment their eyes met, Shaw knew what was wrong; she'd seen it before in the hospital and on the battlefield...

Root was dying.

Shaw advanced the few remaining steps between them and kneeled down to study Root's face. "Are you sure? Cause I kind of think you're lying to me."

Root shrugged and let her hazy, half-smile do her talking, obviously too weak for more. Shaw touched her wrist to take her pulse and when she did, Root uncurled her fingers from around a flashdrive and pressed it against Shaw's hand.

"Will you give you this to Harry? He'll know what to do with it."

Shaw took and pocketed it, but only to free Root's hands and give Shaw a better chance at tracing the source of the blood slowing pouring down her arm. Reaching up, she pulled Root's jacket open just a little more - enough to see the dark stains it concealed - and flicked her eyes back to Root's.

"Bullet or knife?"

"Six of one, half dozen of the other," Root answered with a weak chuckle. But Shaw was not amused...

"Harold? I need a medical safe house, now," she ordered into the comm, making Root pout.

"We don't need Harold. I have Her," she said with drunken finger tap to the side of her head.

"Yeah, well I'm not talking to Her right now," Shaw answered, as she scooped Root into her arms and started walking away towards the nearest row of cars. "Harold?"

" _I'll direct you."_

"I'm fine, Harry..." Root called out weakly from against Shaw's chest. "Everything went... according...to plan...."

***

"...Harry?" Root spat out as her eyes fluttered open.

Shaw leaned over from her chair and eased the woman's flailing hand back down to the bed before she could pull her IV. "'Harry?' Really? He's the first one you ask for?"

Root's struggled to focus and pushed back a bit against her. "Does he have the drive?"

"Yes. He has the drive. Now lay your ass back down."

"Only if you make me..."

Shaw repressed a smile before pushing her back against the pillow; the wave of relief in seeing her awake - and making a weak come on, no less - did not settle the anger that had been steadily brewing in Shaw for hours - when she'd saved Root's life on the table knowing full well she should have saved it fourteen days earlier in the street.

"You want to tell me what the hell that was?" Shaw asked once Root had had some water and seemed more focused.

"Not really," Root answered with a weak shake of the head.

"No? You've got nothing to say to me after setting me up like that? Making me watch them grab you and get away? Because you _did_ set me up, am I right?"

Root nodded this time, but still said nothing.

"What the _hell_ was that about, Root? You don't trust me anymore?"

"Of course I trust you..."

"Then what?"

Root closed her eyes as fat tears rolled down her face. "Because you wouldn't let me go alone."

"No shit, I wouldn't let you go alone. What kind of stupid idiot would I be? And in case you missed it, Root, you _needed_ back up."

"No, I didn't!" she snapped back. "It was the _plan_ to be taken - it was the only way to get inside and get that data - but I know you, Sameen. I _know_ you. You don't follow plans you don't like. You always have to jump in and save the day..."

"And what is so God awful about that?"

" _Because I couldn't lose you again_." The fat tears rolled with a new intensity and Root rubbed the back of her hands uselessly against them. "She told me what would happen if you were too close when they grabbed me. She told me the odds..."

" _Fuck_ the odds, Root. Jesus... It's _my_ job to protect you."

"And its mine to protect _you_. Don't you get that?" Root snapped. "You already did your job, you already died for me. It was my turn... You wouldn't stay behind, so I kept you far enough away to be safe. And I'd do it again tomorrow, if I had to."

Shaw stared, motionless, as Root's words hung in the air. "That's the stupidest goddamn thing I ever heard. _Turn?_ It's not about turns, Root."

"I couldn't lose you again," Root repeated hotly, defiantly, making Shaw shake her head.

"And what, you thought it would be better for me to lose you?"

"Yes."

Shaw stared at her in disbelief, as if she'd just been slapped across the face. "Why? Because I don't do 'feelings?'"

Root met her eyes, but said nothing, telling Shaw everything.

Shaw sat back in her chair, shook her head and, after a beat, started to chuckle. "Well no wonder your plans always go wrong - you're a goddamn idiot." She stared at Root for another moment, daring her to speak, before leaning back in.

"You want to know what I _felt_ when I realized I couldn't find you?" she pressed. "I _felt_ like everything I'd ever done up until then had been pointless. Every time I'd pulled your ass out of the fire or patched you up. Every time I played one of your stupid games or followed you blindly somewhere because you said 'trust me.' Pointless."

She pulled Root's phone from her pocket and tossed it onto the bed. "Every time we found each other. Every time you made the pain stop for just a little while and, goddamn it Root, every time I made the pain stop for you... pointless, because you looked me in the eye and let them take you away."

"And you don't think I know _exactly_ how that feels?"

"Oh no, I know you know _exactly_ how that feels, which is why you of all people should have known better," Shaw answered. "It's not about _turns_ , Root. There's no scorecard."

"And yet, you're the one who insists on being 'the protector,'" Root pushed back. "Always the one who has to sacrifice themselves and can't stand to see others do it for _them_. Do you have any idea what it's like to walk down the street and have Her whisper in my ear the odds that you'll survive to the end of the day? Every time we step out the door now, She has them ready for me..."

"Why? She never did before."

"Because it's all I care about."

Shaw closed her eyes and shook her head before taking a calming breath. She wanted to yell at Root and tell her that was a stupid thing to care about, but if Shaw was being honest, the odds of Root surviving any given day were all she thought, too.

What a pair they made...

"Alright, new plan," Shaw said as she opened her eyes. "Fuck the odds; we make our own."

Root shook her head this time. "That's not how it works sweetie."

"When has that ever stopped us?" She leaned in closer and stared into Root's eyes until she was _sure_ Root was focused only on her. "Fuck the odds. We make our own."

A smile started to pull at the corners of Root's lips. " _Our_ own?"

"Yeah, Root. _Our_ own."

**Author's Note:**

> OK, Team Machine... I set out with the goal of writing 1 new fic a day for 5 days for #OperationCosy. I did that, but how *successfully* remains to be determined by you. I hope you liked them and would love to hear from you if you did, but the point was just to say that I love this world and you folks in it. (and Shooters unite)  
> Go Team.  
> :-)


End file.
